Entry #7

It was interesting when Dennis Hart said, “Freedom is the most important thing in your life. We’re facing an enemy today that’s gonna annihilate us unless we retaliate in one way or another. We have to face up to it, Bomb or no Bomb. Otherwise, we’re a bunch of cowards” (238). His attitude is interesting because Hart believed the Soviets were a real threat to American freedom and that the US had to act against them. From the reading we’ve done in class sometimes it seems like the US was overreacting to Soviet communism, but Hart truly believed that the US had to stand against the Soviet Union. He said Americans would be cowards if they didn’t take action against the Soviets, and this might be because the US had just emerged as a major world power and being isolationists wouldn’t show America’s strength. Hart also said, “The white people have to find themselves, they have to keep looking and find out what it is, because if they don’t, the communists can take over this country without a shot being fired” (242). This idea shows that Hart thought Americans had to be sure of their lives or else they would start believing communism would be the answer to the country’s problems. I don’t agree with Hart. Americans historically have defended their country’s liberty and it’s unlikely that they would turn into communists if they haven’t clearly defined their life goals.
Tom Kearny stated something that I think is true. He said, “Of course, everyone resists change, good or bad. Even if it’s good for them, they resist it” (266). Kearny applied this to race relations and said that white and black people needed to learn to get along because it would be easier, but white people still resisted. While Americans want to make progress, many of them still won’t make the changes necessary for it. Today, some Americans won’t change their lifestyles, despite the poor economy. When Lincoln was elected in the 1800s, southern states chose to secede rather than face any possible changes to slavery. On a different note, Kearny said, “The younger generation doesn’t think too highly of us. They think we made a mess of things, which we did” (269). I think today that idea holds true. People who are going to retire in the next few years think the generation before them ruined their retirement because the earlier generation created Social Security, which will most likely fail. The younger generation thinks their predecessors destroyed the environment. Every generation finds fault with the earlier one, but each generation continues to make choices that negatively impact the future.